Straw Choppers are used on agricultural harvesting machines to reduce the size of crop material other than grain, that is processed by the harvesting machine. Typically, the straw chopper comprises a housing that encloses a rotor. The housing is provided with an inlet for receiving crop material other than grain that has been processed by the crop processing unit and an outlet for distributing the chopped crop material back to the field. The housing is also provided with a bank of stationary cutter knives. The rotor is provided with a plurality of pendulously mounted straw chopper blades that cooperate with the stationary knives to chop the crop material entering the straw chopper. The rotor typically comprises a cylindrical tube having a plurality of mounting locations distributed around the periphery of the rotor. The straw chopper blades are pendulously mounted to the mounting locations.
It has been known to equip the rotating chopper blades with paddles to generate airflow through the straw chopper to better distribute the chopped crop material back to the field. The leading edge of the straw chopper blades maybe provided with a sharpened cutting edge and the paddles are typically mounted to the trailing edge of the straw chopper blades behind the sharpened cutting edge.